This Is Our Science
by Next to Something
Summary: Stories of magic and science and the differences (and similarities) between the two. Eleven standalone one-shots loosely inspired by the eleven tracks on the album "This Is Our Science" by Astronautalis. Lokane unless otherwise noted.


**Disclaimer:** None of this is mine. I barely have a grasp on my own sanity, much less all things Marvel. The song "The River, The Woods" belongs to the exceptionally talented Andy Bothwell, or Astronautalis.

**Rating:** PG-13

**Characters/Pairings:** Loki/Jane

**Genre:** Romance/Drama

**Summary:** Nordic(ish) AU. Jane can feel him watching her watching the stars.

**A/N: **I can't believe this is happening. A dear friend of mine has dragged me kicking and screaming down into the depths of Loki obsession, and this is the byproduct.

This is the first of eleven separate one-shots loosely inspired by songs from the album "This Is Our Science" by Astronautalis. (An excellent album that you should listen to yesterday.) Many songs practically screamed Lokane to me, so after suggesting it to aforementioned dear friend for fic inspiration, I'm taking it back and writing my own. I hope she doesn't mind.

These one-shots will be unrelated and standalone (unless otherwise noted) and all Lokane all the time and I do hope you enjoy them. This is a very new universe for me.

Also, this is dedicated to** startraveller776**, because this is all your fault. Consider these your exceptionally belated birthday gift.

**..oOo..**

**The River, The Woods**

Green eyes flash in the blacker green of the forest. Jane has seen them before, when she comes to look at the stars. Never during the day, when making her way through the winding paths that connect the outcroppings of houses. No, only at night, and only on the clearest of nights, when she knew the stars would be at their brightest.

They watch her, only a whisper of the face they completed visible. At first, the first time she saw them, she had been startled and abandoned her quest to map the stars. She fled for home, ears pricked for the sounds of pursuit. They never came.

The next night she dared venture out, she toted a heavy iron candle stick holder in her satchel along with her usual tools. Just in case.

They did not appear that night, nor the next. Once she had almost convinced herself that she'd imagined the phantom watch, she saw them again. A flicker of starlight caught in fathomless green irises. She pulled the cold iron from her satchel, and laid it on the ground next to her. In warning. The mystery shifted, and she caught a glimpse of a long, straight nose and dark brows. A man. She moved the candlestick holder closer to her. She pulled her notes from her bag, chancing a look down. When her eyes darted up, the watcher was unmoved, if not a bit more shadowed.

Jane felt ill-at ease, certainly, but more so, she felt observed. As a fellow observer, she hesitated on the precipice of fear, knowing her own intentions when _looking_. She meant no harm, only wished to learn. Perhaps, this shade meant the same.

She continued her pilgrimage to the clearing as she had for years before- mapping the stars until the light of dawn threatened to steal her subject, then toting her notes to compare with those previous. She had a few years worth stored in her chest at home, and yearned for a space to call her own to lay them out proper. To compare the travels of the celestial poems to those stanzas she had recorded before. She longed to spend time creating actual maps of them and tacking them along her walls and ceiling, to be surrounded by the wonder she so wholly adored. But her mother despaired that she would ever find a husband that would allow for such behavior, if she found a husband at all. It wouldn't do, a woman so interested in a man's field.

"Mapping the stars are for the men of the longships, Jannike," her mother said. "Not for the widow's daughter."

This fueled Jane's hunger all the more, for her time among the stars was limited. No watchful eyes would keep her from this, not while she still held her own destiny. So she let the green-eyed stranger watch her as she made her notations. Let him drink in her rebellion; it mattered not to her.

It became a thing of comfort, after a time. The nearly disembodied eyes appeared to her with increasing frequency and Jane had begun to associate them with her studies. She felt his watch completed the night; she only had to glance down from the sky to his silent gaze to find the tether back to Earth. He anchored her, whoever he was. She found a strange thrill of kinship with one who could so steadily study their slow-moving subject.

So when the eyes flashed in the deep of the forest this night, Jane smiled.

_Hello, old friend._

She pulled her tools from her bag, the length of iron still stowed at the bottom, though mostly forgotten by now. When she looked back up to find her watcher, she started. He was closer now, closer than ever before. She could almost see him, all of him. She wet her lips and braced her hands on the ground, ready to push herself into a run.

He stepped closer still, his white hands breaking the barrier of the clearing first, raised in a show of peace. He was silent and moved slowly, and Jane had forgotten how to breathe. The light of the stars, for it was a new moon tonight and gloriously dark, revealed him to her in dimly lit flashes. His boot as he stepped from the forest, then the darkness of a leather covered thigh. His belt, slung across his slender hips, sagging under the weight of a winking dagger. A dark tunic, for the shadow of the night was strong enough to rob the world of color, and animal pelts hanging from narrow shoulders.

Then his face, framed in long, waving hair that could only be black, the bulk of the night it stole. His face was cut in sharp angles, terrifying and beautiful. He tipped up his salient chin and his eyes, the eyes she knew, flashed impossible peridot in the dim.

_Gods, he was tall._

"Jannike," he said, his voice like tar- thick and blackened and rich and deadly.

"Jane."

She thought then that she knew him, had seen him before, so many times. He was still advancing on her, gradual though deliberate. She stood from her crouching position and paled at the still improbable discrepancy in their height. He was every man she had ever met, and no man at all. He was-

"Loki."

One of their gods, if the North Men would deign to be mastered. The God of No Good Thing.

"Yes." He dropped his hands, and smiled in satisfaction.

Jane's head swam at his stretch of mouth, looking wicked and childlike and lovely, all at once.

_Loki._

"I've a gift for you, my stargazer." He clasped his hands behind his back, inclining his head.

_Wasn't he supposed to have horns?_

"I don't want it," she answered quickly. It is never a good idea to accept a gift from a god, especially not one whose reputation is so notorious.

"You haven't heard what it is yet." He leaned closer still, before winking completely out of existence. Before she could comprehend his disappearance, he appeared again over her left shoulder. "I think you will like it."

She twirled around, her woolen dress tangling about her ankles and sending her off balance. He grasped her arm to steady her, taking them both by surprise. He let her loose and she rubbed at the band of cold his hand had left on her skin, even through the material of her dress.

He continued to look down at her and some of his hair fell from behind his shoulders. A piece of it brushed against her cheek and he glanced at the contact.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Your gift?" He shifted again, closer still. He seemed to be slowly wrapping her within his body.

"Yes. What is it?"

He held out his hand.

"Come. I will show you."

She eyed his hand, doubt pleating her brow. He took her hand anyway and dragged her to the edge of the clearing. Her feet did not cooperate and she made awkward pace behind him, wary of their destination

"Look, Jane," he whispered. Then he held out his other hand and ran his fingertips over the rough bark of the nearest tree. Luminescent streaks of stardust marked it where his fingers had brushed, glowing in blue-white pulses. She gasped and reached to touch it, surprised to find it unsettlingly cool beneath her her hand.

"These beacons will lead you back. You shan't be lost." His voice hummed very close to her ear and she feared turning to face him.

He held fast to her hand and they walked through the twisted, wild growth of the forest. Loki would reach out every few steps to touch another tree, marking it with pulsating security. Soon he seemed to make a game of it and would leap to mark the tree higher up, dragging Jane into an awkward jump, or he would mark it with runes and symbols, laughing at a personal joke.

He seemed to know his way, abruptly changing directions with seemingly no warning. Jane continued to follow, her feet growing heavy with trepidation.

_Where was he taking her?_

Finally, they broke through the line of trees and Jane gasped at the sight before her. He had brought her to a short cliff overlooking a modest river, though this was not the cause of her awe.

The sky was endless here. It stretched for helpless years of study in four directions, only to be reflected again in relative still of the river. Jane felt suddenly finite and suddenly boundless. The world fell away and all she could do was breathe the same air that suspended the twinkling wonder before her.

"Do you like it?" he asked.

She wished she had lyrical prose to express the profoundness of her absolute joy, but all of it had poured from her heart already so all she could answer was:

"Yes."

"Kiss me," he said.

She did. She couldn't not. She pressed her body into the concave his had created and wove fingers through the slick softness of his hair and kissed him. Their mouths met open, not waiting for the permission to cross barriers and begin the slow dance of lips and tongues. No, they picked up in the middle, already ensconced in the rhythm and the heat. She used her lips to write the lyrical prose of thanks, and he penned his reply with equal fervor. His lips were cold but his mouth was hot against hers.

Despite herself, she moaned.

He fell away from her then, wiping at his mouth. A sparkling bit of the stardust marked the corner of his lips.

"Be careful what you do, Jane."

Her mind fumbled to keep up, the sudden absence of his towering all-presence jarring.

"My spell is already woven," he swept an arm out to indicate the glowing path back through the woods, trees glimmering with different swipes of magic. Suddenly, the runes and markings seemed much less arbitrary.

"And a kiss to seal it."

Her heart thudded. _Why was he warning her if already her fate was decided?_ She felt a fool, following him through the woods into her own demise. And yet she was still here. She had walked through some path that she was not able to retrace, and yet he cautioned her.

"What have you done?" she muttered.

"Nothing yet; not yet."

She looked up at him. He had stepped close to her again, blotting out the glorious night sky.

"Run along your starlit path, Jane," he pointed back through the woods. "And you will not see me again." She sussed a breath in relief before he continued. "You will not see this place again. You will search forever, driven mad with it, but you will not find it in this life or any other."

Her chest constricted and she turned her gaze from the haven of the woods back to him. Her teeth gritted painfully and she trembled in both fear and anger.

"But." He encroached further on her and touched her cheek. She felt the icy burn of his magic streak her face and saw its glow at her periphery.

"Kiss me again, and I will take you closer still." His breath was cold on her face and he smelled like the night. "I'll dance you among the stars, Jane, for you would only improve upon their splendor."

She hadn't realized she was crying. She knew that there was more to both choices. She knew The God of Nothing Good would not lay out the parameters of her acquiescence so readily, but she wanted to try him regardless. She wouldn't be limited to drawn notes in a chest or even to the dream of a ceiling to tack her stars onto. Her ceiling would be the stars and her anchor, for the first time and all over again, would be Loki.

She looked again at the flickering path through the woods, though her decision was already made. The forest path seemed to sense the inevitable as well and the lights started to fade.

She turned back to him, to his menacing smile and problematic eyes. She hoped he wasn't lying. He could trick her, fool her, dance her through the stars fueled by his own private laughter, but she sincerely hoped it wasn't a lie.

Lifting to her toes, she pressed a kiss to his mouth, firmer and slower than her previous recklessness. An answer, rather than an emotion.

He surged around her, wrapping her small body in his long arms, and Jane felt the weightless terror of the solidity of the earth giving away beneath her feet.

They hovered there, and just as Jane had accepted that the worst had come to pass, she felt the prickle of magic as they heaved heavenward into the spiraling, frenzied, infinite abyss of space.

Dancing.

**Fin.**

**..oOo..**

_I would love some feedback from you guys. I'm very new to Marvelverse, and this was a change of pace from what I'm used to, style-wise. I hope you enjoyed!_


End file.
